Fallon Names Executive Creative Director

Al Kelly Held Same Post at Amsterdam's StrawberryFrog

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Al Kelly, executive creative director at StrawberryFrog, Amsterdam, for the past two years, is moving to Minneapolis to take the same post at Publicis Groupe's beleaguered Fallon.
Al Kelly
Account losses
The hiring of Mr. Kelly, 41, comes at a time when Fallon is in dire need of some good news. The shop has recently parted ways with two of its most visible and longest-tenured clients, United Airlines and Citi (it continues to handle some media chores on the latter) and lost out in the final round of Volvo's global creative review, which would have given the shop the auto account it has sought desperately since splitting with BMW in 2005.

At StrawberryFrog, Mr. Kelly lead creative efforts on major brands including Heineken (global creative) and Barilla pasta, among others. In a previous stint at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, where his top position was group creative director, he worked on Haagen-Dazs, Comcast, Saturn, Hewlett-Packard and Nike.

In an interview, Mr. Kelly said his priorities included hiring more young creatives and trying to "figure out how to move forward on the interactive front."

Revolving door
Fallon's last executive creative director was Paul Silburn, who was ousted in January 2006 after less than a year in the job. Mr. Silburn was replaced by former Leo Burnett creative Kerry Feuerman, who took the title of creative director.

Mr. Feuerman then departed after only a year on the job, and was replaced last month by Todd Riddle, who will now report to Mr. Kelly.

"His international background, and his extreme fluency in the digital world, make him particularly well suited for this key position," agency Chairman Pat Fallon said in a statement.